According to the tradition in this practical tai chi style , striking the heavy bag (棉包) is a crucial part of Tai Chi combat (San Shou) training designed to increase the power and effectiveness of your punches and kicks. Usually this is practiced without gloves to condition the hands, so that you can safely strike the hard bones of the face without injury.
Here are the specific guidelines for training with the heavy bag:
- Mental Focus: You must concentrate completely during the exercise, acting and maintaining a state of alertness as if you are facing a real enemy in combat.
- Total Relaxation: Your entire body must remain relaxed, especially in the moments right before you throw a punch. The manual emphasizes that you can only achieve fast strikes if you are completely relaxed.
- Using Waist Power: At the exact moment your strike connects with the bag, you must use your waist power (腰勁) to issue the force. You must absolutely avoid using clumsy, stiff muscular force (拙力) or trying to physically “store up” power before executing the punch.
- Footwork and Tactics:
- Fixed Steps: You should practice striking from a fixed stance (定步) specifically to train and increase your punching speed.
- Moving Steps: You must also practice hitting the bag while utilizing dodging steps (閃步), maneuvering steps (走步), and pursuing strikes (追擊). This is done using specific Tai Chi footwork routines like the Seven Stars (七星步) and Nine Palaces (九宮步) methods.
- Maintaining Advantage: When you pursue and strike the bag, you must ensure you are doing so from a tactically advantageous position (a state referred to as “I am smooth, the opponent is awkward” / 我順人背).
- Safety and Realism: Training on the heavy bag in this manner gives your strikes the realistic physical sensation of hitting an actual person, but it safely absorbs the impact so you do not vibrate and damage your own brain nerves.
